Congress blasts TVA’s plan on floating homes

Bill Johnson, TVA's president and chief executive officer, is defending the utility's new policy on floating homes like these sitting on Norris Lake reasonable since existing floating homes do not have to be removed for 30 years. SPECIAL TO THE NEWS SENTINEL

WASHINGTON — Members of a congressional panel took issue Friday with a new Tennessee Valley Authority policy that requires removal of floating homes from public waterways controlled by the utility.

Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Government Operations, blasted the policy as "an arbitrary decision" that would harm tourism-dependent communities and as an unnecessary distraction from the TVA's mission of producing low-cost energy.

"This is yet another example of the federal government getting involved without seriously evaluating the consequences," said Meadows, R-N.C.

Even the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Gerald Connolly of Virginia, said that while he agrees with TVA's position that no one has permanent "squatting rights" on public waters, the utility should find a compromise that will protect reservoirs without harming families who already own floating homes.

Bill Johnson, TVA's president and chief executive officer, said the utility's board considers the new policy reasonable since existing floating homes do not have to be removed for 30 years.

Allowing them to remain beyond that time frame would be tantamount to giving a few people indefinite property rights to reservoirs that are intended for public use, Johnson said.

Despite a barrage of protests from owners of floating homes and marinas, TVA adopted the new policy last May. The policy prohibits new floating homes and requires that the roughly 1,800 existing homes on the 13 TVA-managed reservoirs be removed by 2046.

Floating homes are different from houseboats because they are anchored in place and don't have an engine that would allow them to move under the own power. If moved, they must be towed.

Several members of Congress are working to block the new TVA policy.

Meadows has introduced an amendment that would prohibit TVA from eliminating floating homes if they comply with TVA's safety and environmental codes. The amendment, part of the Water Resources Development Act, could get a vote as early as next week.

The Senate already has passed its version of the water resources bill, which includes a similar amendment.

At Friday's hearing, floating-home owners argued the new policy is unfair since many of them are descendants of families who lost property to TVA when it created the reservoirs decades ago.

"My family followed the rules, did the paperwork, paid the fees and brought the homes up to decent standards," said Laura Sneed, a resident of Cherokee, N.C., and co-founder of Fontana Families for Floating Homes. "Yet we too are being punished and are going to lose something we legally had the right to own."

Nearly all of the floating homes are moored in waters already leased by marinas and thus are not taking up space in public waters, said Michael Wilks, who owns a floating home on Norris Lake in Campbell County and is president of the Tennessee Valley Floating Homes Alliance.

The uncertainty created by the new TVA policy will cause the value of those homes to plummet and will leave the owners unable to sell them, he said.

Under questioning from Meadows, Johnson could not say how many complaints TVA has received about floating homes — an admission that clearly irked both Meadows and Connolly.

Connolly warned that bad public policy often results from government reaction.

"I'd hate to think all of this is about making three people happy," he said of the new policy.

But Michael Butler of the Tennessee Wildlife Federation said his group supports the policy, arguing that the floating homes raise safety and environmental concerns when not installed properly and amount to de facto private ownership of public waters.

Meadows said he expects Congress to prohibit TVA from enforcing the policy and urged the utility to seek a compromise.

About Michael Collins

Michael Collins is the Washington correspondent for the Knoxville News Sentinel. He writes about the Tennessee congressional delegation and monitors the federal government for any policies or issues that might be of interest to Tennesseans.